Sense and Sensibility

Key

FID

indirect

intro to FID or indirect

Chapter 46

Marianne's illness, though
weakening in its kind, had not been long enough to make her recovery slow;
and with youth, natural strength, and her mother's presence in aid, it
proceeded so smoothly as to enable her to remove, within four days after the
arrival of the latter, into Mrs. Palmer's dressing-room. When there, at her
own particular request, for she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to
him for fetching her mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit
her.

His emotion on entering the
room, in seeing her altered looks, and in receiving the pale hand which she
immediately held out to him,was such, as,in Elinor's
conjecture,must arise from
something more than his affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its
being known to others;and she soon discovered in
his melancholy eye and varying complexion as he looked at her sister, the
probable recurrence of many past scenes of misery to his mind, brought back
by that resemblance between Marianne and Eliza already acknowledged, and now
strengthened by the hollow eye, the sickly skin, the posture of reclining
weakness, and the warm acknowledgment of peculiar obligation.

Mrs. Dashwood, not less
watchful of what passed than her daughter, but with a mind very differently
influenced, and therefore watching to very different effect, saw nothing in
the Colonel's behaviour but what arose from the most simple and self-evident
sensations, while in the actions and words of Marianneshe persuaded herself to
think thatsomething more than
gratitude already dawned.

At the end of another day or
two, Marianne growing visibly stronger every twelve hours, Mrs. Dashwood,
urged equally by her own and her daughter's wishes, began to talk of
removing to Barton. On HER measures depended those of her two friends; Mrs.
Jennings could not quit Cleveland during the Dashwoods' stay; and Colonel
Brandon was soon brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode
there as equally determinate, if not equally indispensable. At his and Mrs.
Jennings's united request in return, Mrs. Dashwood was prevailed on to
accept the use of his carriage on her journey back, for the better
accommodation of her sick child; and the Colonel, at the joint invitation of
Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, whose active good-nature made her friendly
and hospitable for other people as well as herself, engaged with pleasure to
redeem it by a visit at the cottage, in the course of a few weeks.

The day of separation and
departure arrived; and Marianne, after taking so particular and lengthened a
leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so earnestly grateful, so full of respect and
kind wishes as seemed due to her own heart from a secret acknowledgment of
past inattention, and bidding Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of
a friend, was carefully assisted by him into the carriage, of which he
seemed anxious that she should engross at least half. Mrs. Dashwood and
Elinor then followed, and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the
travellers, and feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to
her chaise to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two
young companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his
solitary way to Delaford.

The Dashwoods were two days
on the road, and Marianne bore her journey on both, without essential
fatigue. Every thing that the most zealous affection, the most solicitous
care could do to render her comfortable, was the office of each watchful
companion, and each found their reward in her bodily ease, and her calmness
of spirits. To Elinor, the observation of the latter was particularly
grateful.She,who had seen her week after
week so constantly suffering, oppressed by anguish of heart which she had
neither courage to speak of, nor fortitude to conceal,now sawwith a joy, which no other
could equally share,an apparent composure
of mind, which, in being the result as she trusted of serious reflection,
must eventually lead her to contentment and cheerfulness.

As they approached Barton,
indeed, and entered on scenes of which every field and every tree brought
some peculiar, some painful recollection, she grew silent and thoughtful,
and turning away her face from their notice, sat earnestly gazing through
the window. But here, Elinor could neither wonder nor blame; and when she
saw, as she assisted Marianne from the carriage, that she had been crying,
she saw only an emotion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender
than pity, and in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise. In the whole of
her subsequent manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened to
reasonable exertion; for no sooner had they entered their common
sitting-room, than Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of
resolute firmness, as if determined at once to accustom herself to the sight
of every object with which the remembrance of Willoughby could be connected.
— She said little, but every sentence aimed at cheerfulness, and
though a sigh sometimes escaped her, it never passed away without the
atonement of a smile. After dinner she would try her piano-forte. She went
to it; but the music on which her eye first rested was an opera, procured
for her by Willoughby, containing some of their favourite duets, and bearing
on its outward leaf her own name in his hand-writing. —That would not do.
—She shook her head, put the
music aside, and after running over the keys for a minute, complained of
feebleness in her fingers, and closed the instrument again;declaringhowever with firmness as she
did so,that she should in future
practice much.

The next morning produced no
abatement in these happy symptoms. On the contrary, with a mind and body
alike strengthened by rest, she looked and spoke with more genuine spirit,
anticipating the pleasure of Margaret's return, and talking of the dear
family party which would then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and
cheerful society, as the only happiness worth a wish.

"When the weather is
settled, and I have recovered my strength,"said she,"we will take long walks
together every day. We will walk to the farm at the edge of the down,
and see how the children go on; we will walk to Sir John's new
plantations at Barton Cross, and the Abbeyland; and we will often go the
old ruins of the Priory, and try to trace its foundations as far as we
are told they once reached. I know we shall be happy. I know the summer
will pass happily away. I mean never to be later in rising than six, and
from that time till dinner I shall divide every moment between music and
reading. I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course
of serious study. Our own library is too well known to me, to be
resorted to for any thing beyond mere amusement. But there are many
works well worth reading at the Park; and there are others of more
modern production which I know I can borrow of Colonel Brandon. By
reading only six hours a-day, I shall gain in the course of a
twelve-month a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to
want."

Elinor honoured her for a
plan which originated so nobly as this; thoughsmiling to seethe same eager fancy
which had been leading her to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish
repining, now at work in introducing excess into a scheme of such rational
employment and virtuous self-control.Her smile however changed to
a sigh whenshe remembered thatpromise to Willoughby
was yet unfulfilled, and feared she had that to communicate which might
again unsettle the mind of Marianne, and ruin at least for a time this fair
prospect of busy tranquillity.Willing therefore to delay
the evil hour, she resolved to wait till her sister's health were more
secure, before she appointed it. But the resolution was made only to be
broken.

Marianne had been two or
three days at home, before the weather was fine enough for an invalid like
herself to venture out. But at last a soft, genial morning appeared; such as
might tempt the daughter's wishes and the mother's confidence; and Marianne,
leaning on Elinor's arm, was authorised to walk as long as she could without
fatigue, in the lane before the house.

The sisters set out at a
pace, slow as the feebleness of Marianne in an exercise hitherto untried
since her illness required; — and they had advanced only so far beyond
the house as to admit a full view of the hill, the important hill behind,
when pausing with her eyes turned towards it, Marianne calmly said,

"There, exactly there,"
—pointing with one
hand, "on that projecting
mound, — there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby."

Her voice sunk with the
word, but presently reviving she added,

"I am thankful to find
that I can look with so little pain on the spot! — shall we ever
talk on that subject, Elinor?" —hesitatingly it was
said. —"Or will it be wrong?
— I can talk of it now, I hope, as I ought to do." —

Elinor tenderly invited her
to be open.

"As for regret,"said Marianne,"I have done with that,
as far as HE is concerned. I do not mean to talk to you of what my
feelings have been for him, but what they are NOW. — At present,
if I could be satisfied on one point, if I could be allowed to think
that he was not ALWAYS acting a part, not ALWAYS deceiving me; —
but above all, if I could be assured that he never was so VERY wicked as
my fears have sometimes fancied him, since the story of that unfortunate
girl" —

She stopt. Elinor joyfully
treasured her words as she answered,

"If you could be assured of
that, you think you should be easy."

"Yes. My peace of mind is
doubly involved in it; — for not only is it horrible to suspect a
person, who has been what HE has been to ME, of such designs, — but
what must it make me appear to myself? — What in a situation like
mine, but a most shamefully unguarded affection could expose me to"
—

"How then," asked her sister,"would you account for
his behaviour?"

"I would suppose him,
— Oh, how gladly would I suppose him, only fickle, very, very
fickle."

Elinor said no more. She was
debating within herself on the eligibility of beginning her story directly,
or postponing it till Marianne were in stronger health; — and they
crept on for a few minutes in silence.

"I am not wishing him
too much good," said Marianne at last
with a sigh,"when I wish his secret
reflections may be no more unpleasant than my own. He will suffer enough
in them."

"Do you compare your conduct
with his?"

"No. I compare it with what
it ought to have been; I compare it with yours."

"Our situations have borne
little resemblance."

"They have borne more than
our conduct. — Do not, my dearest Elinor, let your kindness defend
what I know your judgment must censure. My illness has made me think —
It has given me leisure and calmness for serious recollection. Long before I
was enough recovered to talk, I was perfectly able to reflect. I considered
the past: I saw in my own behaviour, since the beginning of our acquaintance
with him last autumn, nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and
want of kindness to others. I saw that my own feelings had prepared my
sufferings, and that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me to
the grave. My illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by myself
by such negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the time to be
wrong. Had I died, — it would have been self-destruction. I did not
know my danger till the danger was removed; but with such feelings as these
reflections gave me, I wonder at my recovery, — wonder that the very
eagerness of my desire to live, to have time for atonement to my God, and to
you all, did not kill me at once. Had I died, — in what peculiar
misery should I have left you, my nurse, my friend, my sister! — You,
who had seen all the fretful selfishness of my latter days; who had known
all the murmurings of my heart! — How should I have lived in YOUR
remembrance! — My mother too! How could you have consoled her! —
I cannot express my own abhorrence of myself. Whenever I looked towards the
past, I saw some duty neglected, or some failing indulged. Every body seemed
injured by me. The kindness, the unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had
repaid with ungrateful contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers, the
Steeles, to every common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and unjust;
with a heart hardened against their merits, and a temper irritated by their
very attention. — To John, to Fanny, — yes, even to them, little
as they deserve, I had given less than their due. But you, — you above
all, above my mother, had been wronged by me. I, and only I, knew your heart
and its sorrows; yet to what did it influence me? — not to any
compassion that could benefit you or myself. — Your example was before
me; but to what avail? — Was I more considerate of you and your
comfort? Did I imitate your forbearance, or lessen your restraints, by
taking any part in those offices of general complaisance or particular
gratitude which you had hitherto been left to discharge alone? — No;
— not less when I knew you to be unhappy, than when I had believed you
at ease, did I turn away from every exertion of duty or friendship; scarcely
allowing sorrow to exist but with me, regretting only that heart
which had deserted and wronged me, and leaving you, for whom I professed an
unbounded affection, to be miserable for my sake."

Here ceased the rapid flow
of her self-reproving spirit; and Elinor, impatient to soothe, though too
honest to flatter, gave her instantly that praise and support which her
frankness and her contrition so well deserved. Marianne pressed her hand and
replied,

"You are very good. —
The future must be my proof. I have laid down my plan, and if I am capable
of adhering to it — my feelings shall be governed and my temper
improved. They shall no longer worry others, nor torture myself. I shall now
live solely for my family. You, my mother, and Margaret, must henceforth be
all the world to me; you will share my affections entirely between you. From
you, from my home, I shall never again have the smallest incitement to move;
and if I do mix in other society, it will be only to shew that my spirit is
humbled, my heart amended, and that I can practise the civilities, the
lesser duties of life, with gentleness and forbearance. As for Willoughby
— to say that I shall soon or that I shall ever forget him, would be
idle. His remembrance can be overcome by no change of circumstances or
opinions. But it shall be regulated, it shall be checked by religion, by
reason, by constant employment."

She paused — and added
in a low voice, "If I could but know HIS
heart, everything would become easy."

Elinor, who had now been for
some time reflecting on the propriety or impropriety of speedily hazarding
her narration, without feeling at all nearer decision than at first, heard
this; and perceiving that as reflection did nothing, resolution must do all,
soon found herself leading to the fact.

She managed the recital, as
she hoped, with address; prepared her anxious listener with caution; related
simply and honestly the chief points on which Willoughby grounded his
apology; did justice to his repentance, and softened only his protestations
of present regard. Marianne said not a word. — She trembled, her eyes
were fixed on the ground, and her lips became whiter than even sickness had
left them. A thousand inquiries sprung up from her heart, but she dared not
urge one. She caught every syllable with panting eagerness; her hand,
unknowingly to herself, closely pressed her sister's, and tears covered her
cheeks.

Elinor, dreading her being
tired, led her towards home; and till they reached the door of the cottage,
easily conjecturing what her curiosity must be though no question was
suffered to speak it, talked of nothing but Willoughby, and their
conversation together; and was carefully minute in every particular of
speech and look, where minuteness could be safely indulged. As soon as they
entered the house, Marianne with a kiss of gratitude and these two words
just articulate through her tears,"Tell mama,"withdrew from her sister and
walked slowly up stairs. Elinor would not attempt to disturb a solitude so
reasonable as what she now sought; and with a mind anxiously pre-arranging
its result, and a resolution of reviving the subject again, should Marianne
fail to do it, she turned into the parlour to fulfill her parting
injunction.